Submitted by Administrator on Wed, 12/06/2013 - 12:44
Dr Claire Gillan has just been awarded the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship. The Fellowship is awarded to the most promising newly qualified postdoctoral researchers and it provides a springboard to launch them into independent research careers, working in top labs in the UK and abroad.
Claire, who studied for her PhD in the Department, currently works as a postdoctoral researcher under Professor Trevor Robbins, and is funded by an MRC Centenary Award. This funding was awarded to study the neural correlates of habit formation in OCD.
Over the next four years, Claire will work with Elizabeth Phelps and Nathaniel Daw at NYU, investigating the interaction between Pavlovian fear conditioning and instrumental action using computational fMRI.
After a period of three years, Claire will return to Cambridge and work with Professor Robbins to apply the basic insights derived from the experiments at NYU to understand clinical anxiety populations, including generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Claire has been active in promoting public engagement with science. Earlier this year she headed the hugely successful Pint of Science festival in Cambridge, which saw top Cambridge academics discuss their research with the general public in informal settings on topics surrounding the Brain, Body and Biotechnology. Claire plans to bring the festival across the pond next year, so that New Yorkers can enjoy a pint of science too!
Congratulations Claire!